Ben & Jerry's is the only vegan ice cream brand that ranked #1 in two independent sources simultaneously: Tasting Table's 21-brand ranking and VegNews's oat milk ice cream roundup. Tasting Table's Sara Klimek praised the 'impressive flavor selection, chunkiness, and overall pizazz.' VegNews highlighted the brand's full transition to an oat milk base in 2024, calling it a meaningful improvement over the older sunflower butter and almond milk formulations.
The 21-flavor lineup is the real differentiator. No other vegan brand comes close. Phish Food, P.B. & Cookies, Milk & Cookies, Cherry Garcia, Strawberry Cheesecake: these are flavors with dedicated fan bases, and the non-dairy versions hold up. Mashed's Jenny Kellerhals Keogh was so impressed by Milk & Cookies that she wrote 'SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. This ice cream is fantastic!' and suggested it may surpass the dairy original.
The price is reasonable for what you get. At $5.99 per pint, B&J sits in the mainstream premium tier, well below artisanal options like Van Leeuwen ($8.99) and Jeni's ($11.99). You can find it at every major grocery chain in the country. For a household where different people want different flavors, no other brand lets everyone pick a favorite from the same freezer section.
What It Won't Do
Reviewed's 12-person taste panel ranked Ben & Jerry's only #5 of 11 brands, and their criticism was specific: 'icy and grainy texture' with 'excessive sweetness.' The panel found it 'fell short of expectations' compared to dairy originals. That's a real concern from the most rigorous methodology in our source set. The texture issue seems flavor-dependent; some pints are smooth and others are noticeably icy. If creaminess is your top priority, Jeni's or Oatly will deliver more consistently.
So Delicious won the NECTAR 2026 Tasty Award in the ice cream category, and that matters because NECTAR's blind taste test was the largest ever conducted for dairy-free foods: 2,183 participants in San Francisco and New York, rating products on a seven-point scale for flavor, texture, and appearance. Winning a blind test at that scale, where brand recognition plays zero role, is hard to argue with.
Tasting Table backed that up with a #2 ranking across 21 brands. VegNews ranked it #3 for oat milk ice cream. The multi-base approach (oat, cashew, coconut) gives buyers a way to find their preferred texture without switching brands. The cashew milk line in particular draws the most praise for creaminess.
At $4.99 per pint, So Delicious costs a dollar less than Ben & Jerry's and nearly half the price of Van Leeuwen. For a product you're buying every week, that gap adds up. So Delicious has been making plant-based frozen desserts for over two decades, and their grocery distribution is as deep as any brand on this list.
What It Won't Do
Reviewed's panel ranked So Delicious #9 of 11 brands, a stark contrast to its strong showing everywhere else. The specific complaint: 'aggressive saltiness/sweetness imbalance' in the Salted Caramel Cluster and a dominant coconut flavor in the coconut-based line. The quality gap between milk bases is real. The cashew line is excellent, the oat line is solid, and the coconut line is polarizing. If you grab the wrong base, your experience will be very different from what the NECTAR testers loved.
Who Should Buy Which
Ben & Jerry's Non-Dairy
21 flavors, oat milk base, the biggest non-dairy lineup in the freezer aisle
- You want the widest flavor selection so everyone in the household can pick a favorite
- You shop at mainstream groceries and want something you can always find on the shelf
- You care about creative, chunky, loaded-with-mix-ins flavors (brownie pieces, cookie dough, caramel swirls)
- You're feeding a group and want a crowd-pleasing brand that non-vegans recognize and trust
- You value Fair Trade certified ingredients and a brand with decades of social responsibility track record
So Delicious Dairy Free
The blind-taste-test champion with three milk bases and a price that works weekly
- You buy vegan ice cream weekly and want solid quality without paying premium prices
- You're experimenting with different milk bases (oat, cashew, coconut) to find what you prefer
- You prioritize blind-tested quality over brand name recognition or flavor novelty
- Budget matters, and the $1 per pint savings over Ben & Jerry's adds up across a year of weekly purchases
- You want the cashew milk line specifically, which several reviewers called the creamiest affordable option